JB's Daughter
by IamPendy
Summary: Violet K'Tah's father is a time agent in our future. Violet knows that his work can be taxing, but something's changed about him. And she isn't to find out. This is the Missing series, but from an outside view: JB's oldest daughter, to be exact.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

I sat on the large rock and watch the sun set over the trees. It wasn't as spectacular as the ones Dad showed us in the past, but it still was very pretty. The last of the rays turn the tops of the trees a brilliant golden, and it reflected in the pond the rock sits by. I wait until it sinks under the treetops before getting up and going home.

I stomped my way through the underbrush, making my way back to the trail that connected our house to Grandma's house. If I wanted to make it back home before it really got dark, I would probably have to take some shortcuts. But I didn't mind, because the woods housed a town from another time. Stretching across a few miles, you could find houses, old roads, even some old school buildings. There's even the remains of the man-made lake somewhere. Otherwise, the area hadn't changed much since the twenty-first century. The school district still covered an area that was mostly forested, and the town still kept the name Hawley.

It had been an old mining town, if I remember correctly. A fairly popular one. Across the street from my house, under the dirt and the woods and the very old, overgrown park had been a canal, I think. And in the woods behind my house was where all the churches were, but only one exists. Dad still took care of the cemetery next to it, because it's on our large property.

I walked through the cemetery and got onto the path. Then I broke into a run, breathing in the late-September air. I could smell the wood stove-natural gas and coal had been long used-indicating that dinner was on its way.

I jogged over the bridge and up to the stairs leading to the screened-in porch. When I opened the door leading to the kitchen, I'm greeted with a blast of A/C. I kicked off my shoes and opened one of the two doors leading to the spiral stairwell in the middle of the house and make my way upstairs.

When I past Dad's room, I paused.

I could hear him and John-his cousin who has lived with us since the accident-talking about something do with work.

"...they stopped the ripple," John was saying. I pressed my ear against the door, intrigued. I knew about all the time-agency lingo, but I had never heard about a ripple being stopped.

"For now," Dad agreed. "But not for long."

"And you're in charge of this? I should've come to work today," John said.

"I'm just in charge of returning the children and getting the employees involved in jail."

Are the girls to know what's going on?"

"They are only allowed to know so much. You know that they aren't allowed to know major criminal activity. They're not even allowed to go into time hollows. Besides, Violet's not even thirteen years old yet. They're young."

I stepped away from the door, because the conversation began to bore me. I open the door that led to the third floor. It's a small stairwell that led up to storage attic, the office, and my bedroom. The house plan made sense until somebody who owned the house before us decided to tear up a part of the attic to make an office and another bedroom. It was pretty big and spacious, and the view of the town and the forest was amazing. I sat down at my desk and looked out the window, at the leaves that were beginning to change. My bed sat by the other window, which looked over the dairy farm. I had a lot of homework to do, so I pulled my bag to me and pulled out the large tablet that held all my school work. I pushed the conversation out of mind for the next couple days.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I had totally forgotten about the entire conversation, assuming it was just some law-enforcement stuff, until Dad came home with a bloody nose and a huge welt on his forehead.

"What happened to you?" I demanded as he stomped through the door.

"It's not important," he tried to reassure me. "Go get the bruise cream, will you?"

I complied, but insist on patching Dad up. I'm sort of the doctor in the family; if someone has an injury or they're sick, I go all Mother hen on them and patch them up. Dad, as always, protested, but unfortunately for him, I can give the same dirty look that he used to stop an argument between James and I.

Speaking of James, she came in just as I finished putting the cream that would speed up the healing by a tenfold. I was surprised that she didn't come sooner-she's a Daddy's girl through and through. She opened the door to the stairwell with a bang and froze there, seeing her beloved father for the first time. "Daddy, what happened?"

James was only ten and a half years old, named after my late-grandfather, and it was obvious where she got most of her genetics from. She had Dad's wavy brown hair and piercing green eyes. They had the same square jaw line, the same nose. The only thing that she obviously got from Mom was the very pale skin that we both shared. Me...most people assume I'm adopted because I look almost nothing like Dad. I had Mom's wavy black hair, the slightly puckered, always rosy lips, and the small, slightly upturned nose. I had more of Dad's jaw line, but otherwise...I was the spitting image of my mother before the accident.

Dad smiled at her. "It's nothing, baby. Is there any corndogs? John's coming home late, and I don't feel like cooking."

"I think so," I said as James said, "I'm not in the mood for corndogs."

"There's noodles," I suggested. "I can make pasta."

James pouted. "We had that last week."

"James..." Dad said warningly. James could be a spoiled brat at times, but Dad usually gave her the same amount of leeway that I got when I was her age.

She sighed dramatically. "Fiiiine. Can I help with dinner?"

"Sure," I said. "You can stand in the kitchen and not make any noise."

"Viiiiioleeet!"

"You wanna be a big help?" Dad interrupted. "Go get me the laptop."

"Okay!" James darted back up the stairs. I could hear her stumble on one of the stairs. I locked eyes with Dad, who said, "You should go get dinner started."

Ookay. So he wasn't trying to get rid of James so he could talk to me in private. I shrugged and went to the kitchen. I tried not to think about how bruised and beatened Dad looked. Maybe there had been a particularly resistant time criminal. No big deal. It's happened before.

Dad still sat in the living room, poring over the glowing square over the laptop. It wasn't anything like the original ones in the early twenty-first century-it was basically a little strip of plastic that projected the screen and keyboard. He seemed so absorbed in his work that he didn't look when when I called his name a couple times. I had to walk over and shake his shoulder roughly before he acknowledged that I existed. We ate dinner in silence, then I sat in the screened porch. Soon, Dad joined me. "Hey."

"Hey," I said quietly. "What happened?"

"Under law of confidentiality, I can't tell you," he replied. He sounded...guilty. Like he wanted to tell me.

"Understandable."

James poked her head out of the door. "Can I sit out here too?"

"Nope," I told her. "No one younger than eleven."

She stuck her tongue out at me and sat next to Dad on the wooden bench. I watched them. It was a selfish thought, but I couldn't help but wonder if Dad had a favorite child, even if he said otherwise.


	3. Chapter 3

A couple days later, John and I were sitting on the screened porch, him smoking a cigarette. We were talking about Honesdale, the closest town, and their weird cult- for as long as I've known, they had been obsessed with trains. Specifically, the Stourbridge Lion, because it was the first steam-powered locomotive to run in the US, and it just so happened to run through Honesdale. John and I joked about how they praised the Mighty Stourbridge Lion God because EVERYTHING in Honesdale had to do with trains, even though it's been a few centuries since the last bit of it was destroyed (except for winter, when it's about "Walking in a Winter Wonderland". Seriously, nobody listens to that song anymore). We watched the sun set over at the woods, the chickens wandering around by the coop and the soft moos from the farm next to us filling the air.

Dad stepped out to the screened porch, James following him. He waved her away and went to talk with John. "I got a message from Sam," he said, holding up his messanger-a small device that was used primarily for texting and replaced cell phones some hundred years ago-around the same time "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" died out.

"Yeah?" John asked, looking up at him and blowing smoke in his face.

Dad wrinkled his nose against the smoke. "We're sending another one back tomorrow."

"Really?"

Dad nodded. "But it's weird. He says that-this is going to sound totally insane-you remember those two kids? The siblings?"

"Skidmark, or whatever their names are?" James and I both giggled, but Dad rolled his eyes. "Skidmore, John. It's Skidmore. For the love of God."

"Sorry. What about them?"

"So... he says that the best solution, the best projection, was sending them with her."

"Wait, wait-which kid are we talking about?"

"Dare. Oh, and for some reason, he threw in a dog. Because why not."

"Wait," I said. "What are you talking about?"

"Your Dad's now Janitor Boy," John told us.

James giggle deeply. "What?"

"Don't ask," he muttered. "Just don't ask."

"Too late," I said. "So what's going on?"

"James, isn't it your bedtime?" Dad asked.

"Don't try to change the subject, _JB_ ," John said. "Tell them about how you had to act like a janitor to relay info to a poor, puking boy. And scared the crap out of a girl, too."

"Maybe at a later date. James, it's nine o'clock. Go to bed."


End file.
